Mr. McDougal's Marvelous Upside-Down Electrotree
2010, January 25th 12:58 AMMy word this one was tougher than I'd expected.
Windows (.zip version available)
Mac OSX (10.6 or higher)
Things I've learned: hexagons suck.
This game makes far heavier use of graphics card hardware than any I've done before. Report any problems! With luck, there won't be any. Luck is not something I have had during the design of this game.
I'm tweaking the terms of my Monthly Game slightly. March is going to be insanely busy thanks to GDC and PAX, both of which I'll be attending, so I might not get a game done in March. If I don't, I'll get two done in April.
Leave commentary on the game. As usual, I'll be posting a postmortem in a week or so.
Albert A
2010, January 25th 12:53 PMPlayed the first level. It's neat! Requires different thought patterns than most falling-block puzzle games I've seen. It's a nice combo of falling block and pipe-building puzzle genres. Will play some later levels when I have time.
It would be really nice if holding down the arrow key would keep moving the piece, instead of having to hammer the key. It takes just long enough to move over a column that it feels clunky and hard to move things quickly.
Albert A
2010, January 25th 6:52 PMAfter a second play through the first level (different computer), the slow speed of lateral movement drove me bonkers. I ended up in a trap about 3/4 of the way through where I had open positions at the edge of the board that I desperately wanted to get the pieces to, but I wasn't physically capable of getting the piece over fast enough, even when I started mashing the arrow key as soon as the piece appeared. Is that an intentional bottleneck/difficulty factor?
gramcracker
2010, January 25th 8:54 PMYou're coming out to PAX East? We should meet up.
Brooks
2010, January 28th 7:09 AMVery interesting concept and I like it. The lateral movement is problematic once you fill most of the board up, but other than that, it's a blast to play. Intro and instruction sheet are well done and very explanatory. A little massaging this one and you got yourself something great!
Anonymous
2010, January 30th 7:26 PMcan't even get past the intro before it crashes and shuts down :(
IkaTaii
2010, February 3rd 9:23 AMAs others have said, some additional fall time above the top of the 'board' would be GREATLY appreciated for the late game, which also appears to ramp up the difficulty by giving fewer and less useful bridge pieces. At present, I'm thinking the 100% powered challenge is nigh on impossible.
Otherwise, this is incredible. A little polish and some tweaking and I'd pay money for a copy of this.
IkaTaii
2010, February 3rd 9:28 AMOther quick thought: it'd be nice to have something check in if you've blocked every possible path, give you a failure screen, and kick you back to the menu instead of the current way, where the game continues until you quit or it finishes on its own.
Thales
2010, March 17th 6:08 PMMine is also freezing at the start of the introduction like anonymous' up there
vazor
2010, April 28th 6:54 PMGreat work, but there was some issue where I couldn't move the pieces left and right as fast as I wanted, which made it unplayable towards the end. Loved the concept and intro and achievements and other polish that went into this. Great work!